


Se Fíf Andgietu Fore Derek

by UndeniableEnigma



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5 senses, Derek Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 12:07:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UndeniableEnigma/pseuds/UndeniableEnigma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek may be damaged, and repressed to an alarming degree, but he’s nowhere near dumb. He knows that most people would think spending so much time in the burnt out shell of your former home where your entire extended family was killed is very unhealthy (both physically and mentally) and very unpleasant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Se Fíf Andgietu Fore Derek

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I made for a class assignment in a creative writing course where we had to use the 5 senses, and Derek as a character really appealed to me because a werewolf's senses are so heightened. 
> 
> The title -pronounced se feef au-nd-yietoo for-é - means 'The Five Senses for Derek' in Old English which came to me because 'Hale' comes from Old English.

The air is always gritty in the house, or in what’s left of it now. There haven’t been physical piles of ashes that puff up into small clouds when they’re stepped on for several years, but there is something that’s tangible in the air, something that itches at Derek’s eyes and tickles the inside of his nose. It makes Derek think of what made the ash, what it is that he might be breathing in, even though the image of people from the coroner’s office carrying out black bags will forever be ingrained in his mind. His family isn't here anymore, and although he can see the perverseness in it, he also knows that he’s far too selfish and lost to be anything but okay with the thought of breathing them in, imagining some bit of them sitting in his lungs the same way their memories do in his heart. It’s like when he drags his hand across the burnt out boards and walls; thousands of tiny splinters catching on his skin, digging in, only to be pushed back out and healed over.

He still hasn't figured out if he’s trying to infuse life back into the dead house or to somehow join it, join them. But there’s a sickly satisfaction Derek gets from the dark stains all around the remains of the house that weren't there five years ago. Every bit of blood, sweat and tears- blood especially- that he sheds here is just that little bit more that he is able to share with them, something he often thinks should have been shared the night these remains were born from a once great home. 

Derek may be damaged, and repressed to an alarming degree, but he’s nowhere near dumb. He knows that most people would think spending so much time in the burnt out shell of your former home where your entire extended family was killed is very unhealthy (both physically and mentally) and very unpleasant. But when he catches faint wisps of Aunt Melanie’s soft lilac perfume in the back corner of the ruined library (their shared favorite place in the house) or the spicy sweetness that seeped from the direction of the once bustling kitchen something settles in him. The scent of pack, with a charred overtone that permeates the entire structure, originating from the basement, is why he stays though. 

When Derek sits in his broken house and lets himself poke and scratch at the unhealed wounds inside of him, what he remembers the most about life in the house before the fire is the unprecedented loudness that is only emphasised now by his solidarity. There were always babies gurgling and older cousins teasing, adults teaching by example and family just being family. The noise really can’t be classified as what Derek misses the most, because it’s clearly his family-mute if necessary- that he would wish back if he could, but it is something that he yearns for none the less. The memories of the sounds of his family, in their house, just living, are something that he cherishes and damns at the same time. 

Stereotypes exist for a reason, and the accuracy of the ones about California weather, Derek has always found to highly dependent on exactly where in California you might be referring to. Beacon Hills is further north, not so much surfer-bay, but more of a smallish town with a ridiculous amount of forestry. When night falls it can get chilly, and Derek revels in the half-minty sharpness of the air when he inhales, lying on his back and watching the dark sky through the almost entirely gone roof. Every pull of fresh air past his teeth and over his tongue bring something else to him; the warm spice of prey that all the creatures in the preserve provide, the peaty, damp earth and the fresh sharpness that Derek can only identify as green. The greenness reminds him of the extensive garden his mother had before the fire, how she loved showing all the kids the little plants in the spring, carrying the scent of new straight from the ground and how they grew into something wild and beautiful as the season went on. When he lies where everything that mattered to him died, and smells all the fresh things outside the half standing walls, he wishes that the greenness could be let inside, that he knew how to do it; how to bring that new life into his own stagnant one.


End file.
